music magazine - flatplan for front cover

music magazine - chosen picture for cover.

ORIGINAL
i have flipped the picture,
and made it sharper and brighter,
to give a preview of the look,
in which i am trying to achieve.

I have chosen this picture because i feel that it includes all the right features that i am looking for.
This is because it shows off the necklace and fashion well, along with the hair and makeup, matching the tones of the background.
I also like the angle of the stripes in the background, as it attracts your eye along the page, from the main focus of the image, which is Jasmine, over to the cover lines.
The main focus is Jasmine because of the strong eye conact down the lense of the camera, providing me with an eye catching image.
I also feel that the shading has worked very well on this photo, in the way that it is shadowed behind Jasmine, making her the main focus, as most of the light has fallen on her, followed by the light which has bounced off the background on the left, making a perfect backing for the coverlines.
When i edit this photo i am going to remove the red eye, and add an over tone to add to the soft tone effect.

music magazine - a few final pictures

I have chosen these photos, in which one is going to be the main cover, and others as my small images for my contents page and double page spread.
For my images, i have used warm tones, to follow the theme of my style model.
I have stripes in the background to give me some dynamic angles, interest, and tones which match her hair and makeup. her makeup represents the urban music, as it full on, yet natural tones, her hair also follows the same popular fashion, as its big, messy but styled.
I then have tried to match her outfit with her eyes, with a blue denim look top and light blue eyes, so that all colours included compliment each other.
The blue denim look top and hand necklace, ties in with the urban music, and popular fashion right now, to catch the target audience, as they will want to read about the latest trends in music.

 

music magazine - proposal

My magazine is going to be aimed at a male and female audience at an age range of 18+ year olds, so that I can follow the codes and conventions of music magazines, as they like to be filled with a more mature content, that appeal to both sexes. My magazine will be a weekly issue, which will be about the latest music in the charts, artists, concerts, interview, and upcoming music events. I have chosen the magazine to be released on Mondays as I feel that it’s the best time, as music enthusiast would have watched or listened to the UK top 40 released every Sunday,  and also it’s at the beginning of the week, so that they know the latest gossip. I have also chosen to do it in January as I can talk about upcoming concerts and events coming during 2012 that fans would want to know about.
My magazine will be £2.99 as that is the most common price for music magazine, as many will be more likely to pay this price.

My cover lines are going to include such things as:

-Headline
 Jasmine Munro 
'The chart topper sensation'

-Coverlines - 

UK top 40 this week
amazing songs for 2012
Coldplay's incredible concert

lit the night away

Beyonce
'I want to be an icon'

Adele
No1 album in 14 countries,
whats next?

I chose bulletin as my masthead, because my style model is billboard, so I made my masthead bulletin as it has the same meaning, and represents the weekly update of important music news, like what an actual bulletin board is used for.

The masthead will be in black and written in ‘Latha’ bold, I then made the ‘B’, ‘e’ and ‘I’, have 3 primary colours, for a clean and fresh look, so that its bright, and allows the magazine to have a strong identity logo for easy recognition.

My magazine will be A4 portrait in which my chosen image will take up the whole page. I have chosen A4 as it’s the typical size of a music magazine. My chosen picture will be a ‘pretty’ posed, close up of a female, in which I will take the same representation of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Ke$ha, from Billboard magazine, as they have made the photos with styled hair, pretty makeup, strong poses and a mellow colour scheme and picture effect, which I will try to achieve, as they also represent the urban, and popular music out right now, which i am going to portray. My model is going to be my 22 year old sister, as i feel that having a model a similar age to the target audience attracts the right crowd.
They have then inverted the masthead to make it stand out, and have followed that colour scheme of white throughout, which I will also do, if my title stands out more in white.
For the fonts used, it’s very basic, in the way that they have used the same crisp font, but just in two colours and various sizes for emphasis, and then an individual font representing the singer shown, which I will also include in my front cover, to fit the clear and tidy, grid like structures to music magazines.

The name of my singer will be ‘Jasmine Munro' the chart topper sensation, I have chosen this headline because of the raves about the urban types of genre right now, and when a singer is number one, billboard is always the magazine who has them on the front cover, to seem popular and up-to-date.

On the contents page, my colours and fonts are going to be continued throughout, so it will be clear and tidy, and I’m also going to include images from pages in the magazine to make them want to read on, and know what to expect.
For my double page spread i am going to be interviewing Jasmine Munro, as I've asked many people what they like to read in music magazines and they said they like to read about a well-known singer, in an interview form, as it doesn't look boring to read, and is more entertaining, also billboard loves doing interviews, as it makes their magazine look more 'eclusive', as they have actual talked to the 'chart toppers' themselves.

To clarify my magazine is going to have:

• an urban feel and tone.
• an interview with Jasmine Munro.
• a close up image.
• a bold bulletin masthead.
• be simple and crisp.
• be a popular topic filled magazine.

All following my style model of billboard magazine, and following the poses of ke$ha, Beyonce and Adele.

music magazine - initial ideas

music magazine - inspiration for my front cover

These 5 pages all have the same mellow and neutral tones to their pictures, in which I want to achieve in my magazine. 

I also want to use the style of a close up image of a young adult female, who has the big styled hair, and natural coloured makeup, so that i can achieve a professional look of a main stream magazine that covers all types of music, but giving the feel of the very popular music magazine, which is on the very popular acoustic genre right now.

music magazine - codes and conventions

Music magazines always follow the same codes and conventions, which I am now going to analyse.

The masthead is always at the top of the page as its main job is to draw in the audience’s attention and suggest the genre and target audience, it is normally very short and snappy, and uses a bold and strong font, relating to the genre of the music, which acts as a recognisable logo. Then there is always a main image used, which is of the main band or artist, when it is a band it's usually a long shot, taken with a dynamic angled shot, however when it is a solo artist it is usually a mid-shot or close up. Both techniques use direct address, which consist of the artist(s) looking at the camera in order to connect to the audience, to portray an ‘attitude’ and to represent their music, with their body language and facial expression. Subsidiary images are also used, which may also get you to look at the magazine, especially when well-known images are used, and can be used to give them a little snippet in whether they will like the contents of the magazine to buy it, and so that they include more well-known faces to appeal to a broader audience.

The masthead and picture sets the colour scheme and theme which then creates the style for the headline and cover lines. Most music magazines have a colour theme of two main colours; these colours are usually from a limited range as this makes the magazine stand out more to its audience. The Headline matches this theme and is big and bold to attract attention and make the main image relevant. A tag line is then used to attract attention and give the headline relevant content, adding another colour and size font. For the cover lines, there are always normally around 5 cover lines which relate to the singer, or other big artists, or genre of music covered, and uses as little words as possible so that they make the audience intrigued, without a big section of text. In these cover lines buzz words, promotion or a ‘puff’, are normally used to attract attention for example "plus" and "free” as these get the reader to want to buy that magazine even more. Basic information is also featured on the front cover; which is needed for most magazines in general like a bar code, price and issue date. If the magazine is more expensive then this price tends to be smaller so that it isn't the first thing the audience see and get put off by. On the other hand if the magazine is cheap then the price is usually bigger and bolder, or presented in a badge, in order to quickly draw in the audience’s attention.

There is an organised layout to music magazines, which suggests a more mature and adult audience, as it is formal, which is appropriate to the genre and the target audience, this is achieved by limited ranges of font, grid system for the layout, and simplistic colour scheme and main image. For example Q magazine looks more serious. If you can see the background on the magazine, normally it’s because it’s a band, but there is normally a plain background, making the look more formal, and other features stand out.

music magazine - information of chosen magazine Billboard.

About Billboard

Billboard is based in New York, and has been in the entertainment business since 1894. at the beginning it was a weekly for the billposting and advertising business, Billboard and its popular music charts have evolved and included information on trends and innovation in music, serving music fans, artists, top executives, tour promoters, publishers, radio programmers, lawyers, retailers, digital entrepreneurs and many others.

Billboard.com was launched in 1995 and attracts ten million unique visitors each year due to the popularity of the magazine, which provides the target audience with an array of searchable, playable charts, breaking music news, artist interviews and exclusives, news, video's, and you can even subscribe to their magazine, so its even easier to get hold of their magazine.
Billboard is also an a very well known music chart, that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis. The two most popular charts are the Billboard Hot 100, which ranks the top 100 songs regardless of genre and is based on physical sales, digital sales and radio airplay; and the Billboard 200, the corresponding chart for album sales. 

For billboards covers, they tend to use the singer with the most popularity at that time, so that they are up to date, and modern, they also tend to make it the women look beautiful and the men cool, and have different color schemes and themes to fit in with that music genre and singer. The cover lines normally used is all about the latest gossip, tips, news, and interviews.

music magazine - detailed annotation of chosen magazine.

Main Image –  

·         Taylor Swift – well known pop singer who very recent.

·         Very pretty and made-up hair and make-up giving the look of importance and professionalism.

·         Strong pose – staring at the camera to catch the reader’s  attention

·         All the tones of the background, hair and makeup match a mellow and natural colour of browns greys and blondes, showing the theme of her pop music, and attracting the 16+ female target audiences.

·         A centred image, leaving space for the left third.

Cover lines –

·         ‘credit crisis’, ‘retailer tests’, ‘Wow jones’, ‘chart heat’ – uses exaggerated vocabulary to make the readers want to look inside and buy it.

·         All hot topics that are relevant to the time of release

·         In yellow and white to match the mellow colour scheme, and to make the title stand out, and add interest.

·         Varies in sizes to make the text fun and modern

Masthead – Billboard

·         Quite a simple looking masthead as its black and rounded covering the width of the page, the three main colours are red yellow blue and green, creating a very simple but effective logo/representation of the magazine, which is a fun young music magazine.

Barcode –

Also Includes date website and price

Main cover line –

·         Largest text on the page

·         Bold and white to stand out, and fit in with the colour tones.

·         To emphasise the point that she is a big singer / ‘teen queen’

San serif font –

·         Traditional

·         Clean, clear and crisp

·         Matches font of masthead

music magazine: music magazines general format.

These are just a few of many music magazines, such as;

• V - v magazine has a target audience of 20+ females, this is becuase its a high end magazine which also includes female topics e.g fashion. The music genre usually covered is chart music, and who is the most popular at that specific time, so that they look modern and up to date, tuning into the younger audiences.
• BLENDER - blender are very up to date and cover the pop music genre, the target audience will be most likely females from the age of 15+, as its a more gossip magazine, and singers who have a young audience e.g. Kelly Clarkson.
• SPIN - spin also have an up to date coverage on the genre of hip hop as well as relesing issues on many other genres. They have a wide rande of audience from 20+ males and females, as they include bands like Mumford and Sons and Skrillex.
• VIBE- vibe are a hip hop/urban culture music magazine, which have a male and female target audince or 20+, as its more of an adult based content, and language.
• Q - Q is a rock magazine with a huge target audience as they cover well known, and admired performers, and is a trusted name. The age range is 20+ as the target audience have to have some music history, as they cover iconic bands of certain times, and the content is for maturer minds.
• Billboard - billboard covers all music that is popular and in the charts. They are very up to date and in tune with the youner audience of about 16+, as they include polls, and tweets etc, their main target audience are females as they present it in a quite femine fashion, as its all quite pretty and full of need to know gossip.